22 February 2012

A Small Adventure will do you a World of Good

Every Tuesday, some of my friends and I go to the Bountiful Utah Temple to do Baptisms for the Dead. It is really an amazing experience, and it is such a great way to start out your day.

Twice a year, each Temple is closed for cleaning and maintenance. This week, and the following week happen to be the time of year that the Bountiful Temple is closed.

In order to maintain our pattern of going every Tuesday, we decided that instead, we would travel to the next closest Temple, the Salt Lake Temple.

Let me explain a bit more about Baptisms for the Dead.

This is the Salt Lake Baptistery Font. (It is much, much bigger in person.)

When people die, and have not been Baptized in the name of, and by the power of Christ when they were living, they are unable to enter the Kingdom of God by no fault of their own.

When the nearest relative has given consent, their name may be taken to a Temple, and a living person may be Baptized in their behalf. This way, they have the opportunity to choose to enter the Kingdom of God, even if they didn't have the chance to learn about it, and be Baptized on earth.

And that is why me and my friends go every Tuesday to do Baptisms for the dead. Because there are so many people who were born, lived and died with out every deciding for their selves if they wanted to be Baptized. Through a Temple, the living on earth can give them that opportunity to decided after they have died.

It was one of the most spiritual Temple trips I have ever had.

Maybe because it was a different Temple that we normally go to. Maybe because of the history, that this Temple is more than 100 years old, and Prophets and Apostles have walk its halls.

It was special.

After we were done with the Baptisms, we went out side to walk around Temple square. We went into the North Visitor Center, to sit in front of the Christus statue.

If you have never seen a Christus statue, it is a marble figure of the resurrected Christ. He is clothed in all white, and his hands are opened toward you. In the palms of his hands and on the tops of his feet are the holes where he was nailed to the cross.

It was very quiet there. Just sitting in front of his statue.

Thinking about what he has done for each of us. The love he must have to have gone through that for us.

It was truly amazing.

It was an amazing trip, with the four of us. The Temple is full of symbolism, and just walking around its exterior afterwards made us feel good. I guess it is something beyond my comprehension. How all our simple acts here on earth have such profound reactions in Heaven above.